The potato is an annual herb with a tall, erect or slightly spreading bush, consisting of tetrahedral stems with intermittently pinnate leaves of a deep green color. The flowers of the potato are purple, white, collected in an inflorescence-shield. The main commercial products of potatoes are thickened underground shoots - stolons.

This vegetable culture is known to all of us, as potatoes are present in many culinary recipes and dishes. It not only tastes great, it contains a lot of useful things (starch, vitamins, protein).

Potatoes were brought to Europe from South America in the 16th century. Its wild varieties are still found in Peru, Bolivia and other countries in the region. Due to its simple agricultural technology and rather high yield, it soon became very popular and in demand in many European countries. Introduced to Russia by Peter I at the beginning of the 17th century, it began to be actively cultivated in our country only in the 19th century. The reason for such a slow development of potato growing was the erroneous consumption of poisonous green berries by the peasants for food, not stolons.

Potatoes Lyubava

Currently, potato growing is a whole industry. The cultivation process continues to be studied, many new varieties of this crop appear. So, specialists of the GNU VNII Center named after A.G. Lorkha, together with the breeders of the Kemerovo State Scientific Research Institute of Agriculture, bred potatoes of the Lyubava variety. In 2003 it was entered into the "State Register of Breeding Achievements Admitted for Use" under code No. 9908342.

In this article we will analyze what kind of potato variety Lyubava has a description of the variety, how to grow it, and what advantages and disadvantages it has.

Description of the variety

Potatoes of the Lyubasha (Lyubava) variety are distinguished from other varieties by their characteristic appearance and characteristics such as ripening time, starch content, etc.

Botanical Description:

  • The plant is formed into a compact bush of medium height, the stems are ribbed, semi-erect;
  • Leaves are small, dark green, rich in color, have a slightly wavy edge;
  • The flowers are bright lilac-violet hue, collected by a shield on the stem, corollas are five-part medium-sized.

Tubers:

  • The mass of one fruit is 120-200 g;
  • Oval shape;
  • The peel is red, has a slight roughness and eyes of medium depth;
  • The pulp is dense, white. Its starch content is 14.5%. Possesses good taste, boils well.

Characteristics of the variety

Potatoes for the Urals, Sverdlovsk region

The potato variety Lyubava has the following characteristics in terms of maturation, yield and growing regions:

  • In terms of ripening, Lyubava potatoes are considered an early ripening table variety. They begin to sow it in mid-May, and already 70-75 days after the emergence of seedlings, the crop is harvested;
  • But the peculiarity of the Lyubava variety is due not only to the short ripening period, but also to the high yield, which is sometimes impressive, ranging from 300 to 400 kg per one hundred square meters;
  • The most preferred regions for growing this variety of potatoes are those with a short warm period:
  • Ural;
  • West Siberian;
  • Volgo-Vyatsky;
  • Far Eastern.

Important! All characteristics, as well as information about the originators and patent holders of the Lyubava potato variety are given in the “State Register of Breeding Achievements Permitted for Use”. With the help of this periodically updated register, reliable characteristics can be obtained for all varieties of potatoes and other crops.

Cultivation technology

Potatoes Raisin

Now about the process of growing potatoes of the Lyubava variety. It consists of such stages as:

  • Seed material preparation - in order to get the harvest as early as possible, seed potatoes are germinated 1-1.5 months before planting in the ground. To do this, first, the planting material is carefully prepared, the future harvest depends on its quality. If there are own stocks of this variety in storage, then healthy, intact medium-sized tubers weighing 40-60 g are chosen for planting. For germination, the seed material is placed in a dry container treated with a solution of potassium permanganate and placed in a bright and warm room at a temperature of + 10- + 15 ° С, keeping it in it until short green shoots are formed, 8-10 mm long;

Important! It is not recommended to germinate potatoes in a warm, dark room - this method of germination produces long, fragile white shoots without leaves. When planting tubers in the soil, such sprouts easily break off and do not give early shoots. In addition, the planting material that has lost a lot of nutrients for forcing long shoots will be greatly weakened and prone to rotting and damage by pests.

  • Choosing a site - a site for planting is chosen sufficiently illuminated, moderately moist, with a deep bed of soil waters. In terms of composition, potatoes prefers to grow on medium and light highly fertile loamy soils with a slightly acidic and close to neutral reaction of the environment. To comply with crop rotation, you should not plant potatoes in the area where tomatoes, peppers, and garlic were grown. It is better to use areas for planting potatoes where legumes, cabbage, cucumbers, and also green manures (mustard, rapeseed, radish, lupine, beans) were cultivated;
  • Soil preparation. If the soil on the site is compacted, it is dug up or plowed, thereby creating a loose layer. During autumn soil preparation, a full dose of phosphorus and potassium fertilizers (1.5-2 kg of double superphosphate and potassium sulfate per one hundred square meters) is applied to the potato site on light loams for autumn digging or plowing. On light soils, organic fertilizers (rotted manure, composts) are applied for pre-sowing soil cultivation in the spring at a dose of 600-800 kg per hundred square meters. Also, under the pre-sowing treatment, nitrogen fertilizers are applied in the form of ammonium sulfate or urea at a dose of 4 and 2 kg per hundred square meters, respectively;

Important! Fresh manure should not be applied under the potatoes - this will cause a strong overgrowth of the plantation with weeds, burns of sprouts upon contact with organic matter, attraction of such pests as a bear, the larva of the May beetle.

  • Planting tubers. There are several ways to plant seed tubers in the ground: in ridges, furrows, holes. If the potato plot can be flooded with heavy rain, then the tubers are placed in the ridges. When the place is excessively dry, the potatoes are planted at the bottom of the furrow, where the moisture lasts longer.

Important! It is best to buy seed potatoes Lyubava in a specialized store or seed farm (elite farm, semhoz). When purchasing, you need to pay attention to the availability of a confirmation document issued to the seller by the organization that sold this planting material to her.

The elite and semkhozes must have evidence that the potatoes they sell are pure-variety and conditional. It is recommended to buy seed packed in a sturdy net with meshes of such a size that proper ventilation of the tubers during storage is ensured.

Seed material packed in a sturdy net

The scheme for planting potatoes of the Lyubava variety is as follows: the distance between the rows is 70-75 cm, the tubers are planted 25-30 cm apart from each other.The sowing depth depends on the type of soil: for clay - 8-10 cm, for light sandy - 10-12 cm.

When planting, a small amount of mineral fertilizers (3-4 g of simple superphosphate), a little ash and humus are added to each hole - this is necessary so that the emerging young roots are provided with readily available nutrients.

Care

Potato Lux

Any vegetable crop, Lyubava potatoes is no exception; constant care is needed. It consists of such traditional works as:

  • Hilling - thanks to him, the access of oxygen to the roots increases, new stolons are formed on the stems, which increases the yield. The first hilling is carried out when the plant reaches 10-15 cm, the next - after a couple of weeks, and so on until the beginning of flowering;
  • Top dressing - the optimal amount of dressings for this variety of potatoes - 3 times. A month after planting the potatoes, nitrogen fertilizers are applied, for example, a mixture of 15 g of urea and 0.5 liters of mullein, diluted in 10 liters of water. During the budding period - potassium-phosphorus (a mixture of 15 g potassium sulfate, 15 g superphosphate, wood ash). Complex fertilizers are applied 14 days after flowering;
  • Watering... Despite the drought resistance of the variety, watering is not excluded; it is better to combine it with top dressing;
  • Weeding... So that weeds do not interfere with plant growth, they are removed constantly. In conditions of large plantations, herbicides are used. On summer cottages and household plots, weeds are removed manually when hilling.

Advantages and disadvantages of the variety

The variety has such advantages as:

  • Short growing period, which is important for regions with short summers;
  • High productivity;
  • It is important to note the quality of tubers, which have a presentation and are well stored (their keeping quality reaches 98%);
  • During the growing period, the culture painlessly tolerates a lack of moisture;
  • The variety is resistant to various diseases.

But the varietal potatoes Lyubava has not only some advantages, but also a minus: during the cultivation period it can be affected by late blight, golden nematode. Therefore, one cannot do without preventive measures, fungicidal preparations (Thanos, Acrobat MC, Revus, copper sulfate, Bordeaux mixture).

Thus, Lyubava is a potato variety that has proven itself very well for growing in summer cottages and backyards. High-yielding, early maturing, drought-resistant, it is affected by nematodes and late blight, requiring dressing of the planting material and several fungicidal treatments during the growing season.

Video